


Grey, Persistent

by darklittlestories



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Loki Angst, M/M, Rain, Romantic Fluff, Storms, romantic melancholy, seriously the fluffiest thing I have ever written, very mild angst for Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 06:44:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6944023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklittlestories/pseuds/darklittlestories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki mopes about a chilly, rainy Asgard spring. Thor helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grey, Persistent

Loki has been sinking into a dark mood as surely as his boots sink now into the squelching, sucking mud. It's been a slow decline (and even he is not such a liar to pretend that his mind is ever a particularly bright place to inhabit) and he only connects it with the weather later, once he has returned to his rooms. He'd stomped off the clinging mud outside the entrance to the palace and then dried himself and smoothed his hair with a careless wisp of seidr before entering. He savored the slight warming in his feet and legs afforded by the spell.

Now, seated by the fire, he notices his brooding melancholy had begun sometime in the middle of the solid month of cold, heavy rains.

It is late spring in Asgard, and most other years, the golden Realm Eternal would be living up to its name with sunny vigor. But this unseasonable cold wet is wearing him down. He'd grown moody in the second week of the watery, clouded light and has been magically enhancing his braziers, sconces, and hearth fires for more brightness and warmth. That can't have been helping the feeling of lethargy, that slight draining on his resources. He had missed that at the time, as well. His dark moods always tend to dull his mind just a bit, and those spells siphoning energy away couldn't be helping. He drops them now and manually feeds a few more logs onto the fire.

He chooses a text from the pile of books by the little nest he's been cocooning into, but scowls when his attention is constantly shattered by the pattering of the fat droplets of rain against the glass of the windows and balcony doors. There's no thunder, even, to give that little frisson of electricity, the showy flashes of light. He envies that elemental power, but hasn't yet begun to hide his enthusiasm for his brother's crashing, awe-filled storms. Even the first sprinklings of this rain, he remembers, had carried a certain cleansing charm.

But his affection has soured. The memory of the first leaves turning up their silver sides to drink the water has faded, along with the scent of petrichor and ozone in the then-warm air.

By the standards of Asgard's short winters, the current chill isn't even a proper cold, and though Loki is annoyed with himself for this petulance, he cannot seem to shake it.

He starts at a loud pounding on his chamber door, even as his mind recognizes Thor's knock as surely as he would his brother's face. Thor is the last person Loki wants to see. He's been avoiding him for days now—or has it been weeks?—and he supposes he'd best see him now lest Thor persist, bothering him further.

"Come in, Brother," he calls, as he silently drops the wards on his door. "I'm in the sitting room." Loki can hear the weariness in his own voice and knows it won't go unnoticed. He's scowling out the window when Thor stomps in and plants himself with a great flop into Loki's nest of furs.

"Loki? What troubles you?" Thor asks, all warmth and care.

Loki turns his glare on Thor. "Is that you?" he demands, sharply inclining his head toward the dripping, grey scene outdoors.

"I do not..." Thor begins, faltering before finishing the reply, "I don't know." The familiar furrow of worry appears again between Thor's brows, just as it has countless previous times. "It was purposeful at first, Brother. The realm needed the rains of spring, of course, but I have not..." he trails off.

"What?" Loki asks shortly.

"Well, I confess my disposition has been darkened of late." He looks pensively out at the rain battering and rattling the windows and doors. "Perhaps this weather is reflecting that."

Loki snorts derisively. "Perhaps?" 

Then after a moment of thought he narrows his eyes and asks, "What reason has Asgard's golden prince for a dark mood? Surely that is mine own domain?"

Thor gives Loki the wounded look he always does at Loki's self-deprecation. As if it were  _ Thor  _ Loki had insulted.

"Well, I suppose that's the very thing, Brother. You have not been at the Great Hall for meals, nor the training grounds, and I've missed you. Are you well?"

Loki feels a conflated mix of emotions as ever at Thor's concern. It is at once suffocating and reassuring. He wants simultaneously to lean in toward the feeling and force it away. He wants to do exactly the same thing physically to his brother. He bristles, caught in the conflict that seems ever present these days. He misses the easy camaraderie he used to share with Thor — truly, he does. But he feels the space between them growing. 

_ I am at fault for that _ , he thinks. Some shadow of this must show on his face, because Thor takes his hand.

"Loki. Truly, Brother. What is the matter?" Thor seems genuinely upset now.

  
Without warning, a mad giggle bubbles out from Loki. Alarmed, Thor pulls back as if Loki had struck him.

He watches as Loki's strange fit settles into his more quiet, even laughter. 

"It's the bloody rain, Thor," he gasps when he's mostly regained his composure. "I have been in the most dreadful mood because of this damned rain. And you—" he bursts into another small tremble of laughter. "You were sulking because I..."

Thor finishes the thought. "We were feeding one another's poor tempers, it seems." He gives Loki a shy, apologetic smile.

They sit a moment in silence, staring out at Loki's balcony. And then Thor stirs, rising to his significant height with grace that Loki can never quite figure. A man as large as his brother oughtn't be able to move this way. 

 

"Come with me, Loki," Thor asks, offering his hand. 

Loki fixes him with a quizzical look, but grasps him above the wrist, that clasping that is both a general warrior's clutch and a specific, treasured familiarity between the princes.

Loki stands, aware, yes, that the unfolding of his long limbs is more fluid and graceful yet than Thor's. He allows Thor to pull him toward the glass-paneled doors and then outside. 

As they go, Thor drops his hand to lace his fingers through Loki's. Loki doesn't always allow such intimacy, but now he does. The vague resentment he's been harboring toward Thor burns away like dew under the sun.

But it bubbles up again, his enmity _ —That's all I shall be my life entire: A tiny thing, sparkling only when Thor deigns to shine upon me.  _ He pushes the thought away, focuses his attention on the real warmth flowing into him from Thor's fingers.

Standing on the balcony, they look together out over the watercolor landscape of the palace grounds. Everything beyond is shrouded in impenetrable grey. Then Thor unhooks Mjölnir from his belt and widens his stance. When he reaches out toward him, Loki doesn't hesitate.  He steps into Thor's space, and flattens himself tightly against his bulk as Thor settles a solid, sure arm about his waist. He twirls the great hammer in his right hand and they lift into the air.

 

The shock of flying is a thrilling fright, and it shoots violently through Loki's guts. Every time, he lets his blood calm and then goes limp in Thor's grip. 

Every time, Thor presses Loki's body stubbornly against his own, and Loki wages a silent war with himself at the pleasure of Thor's possessive, protective gesture. 

Often he scowls at his brother for creating such turmoil inside him, but now he acquiesces, and slides one hand up to rest at the nape of Thor's neck. The other, he moves down, and finds, yes, Thor is swollen hard in his leggings. Loki wonders if it's the flight or the proximity of his brother's body that stirs him. Thor grins at him, eyes glowing, hair streaming and Loki is wracked by a tremor at that look.

They're moving away from the city, but still climbing upward. At length, they burst through the clouds. This far out, they've thinned. Loki can see, through the gauzy wisps, the summit he and Thor often visit when they wish for solitude.

As predicted, Thor begins to descend toward the crest along its peak. When they land, Loki shrugs free and dries himself and Thor with a golden shimmering of magic, then wanders a short way to gather kindling. He'd rather forego the concentration of maintaining a fire, though he ignites the bundle with a spark of seidr when he returns to Thor's side.

  
Thor nods at Loki's return, but is looking out across the land, in the direction of the city. He raises Mjölnir again, and holds her high above his head. Brilliant broken-bone angles of light split the sky in booming cracks and meet the uru head of the hammer and Loki's astonished to see they reach so far from the mount.

Thor's eyes go from electric blue to white as he manifests his will into the heavens. Loki watches the clouds crowning the city darken and gather, rolling and rumbling toward Thor. 

_ He means to soak us through again _ , Loki laments, though the spectacle will be worth it.

But the storm centers below and before them, an art Thor is making for him. When the torrent rages under its own volition, Thor settles in behind Loki, and pulls him flush against his chest. He lays a fond kiss against Loki's hair, and they watch the great storm dash itself on the hills and crags below them.

  
The air is crisp and clean scented as the weather clears, the light golden and gorgeous and blinding. 

Loki sees the womb-red of sun through the thin skin of his eyelids as he tilts up his head and allows his brother to kiss him breathless.

**Author's Note:**

> What do you mean 'Asgard sounds an awful lot like Appalachia this spring'?   
> No, I answer, it is EXACTLY like this godsforfuckingsaken cold, wet HELL. And I realize I'm absolutely a spoilt child, you darlings up north or in England or anywhere that this would be typical spring weather. But normally by now I'd be spending weekends swimming at the lake up in the mountains avoiding sunburn.
> 
> Though, get this—there was an actual storm last night then sunshine this morning. I'd finished all but the ending so my only possible conclusion is that Thor read the story in its entirety in my head, approves of Thorki, and gifted me, too, with Loki's sunshine. It's my headcanon that Loki, like me, prefers sunny days to rain, unless it's a STORM. And on the sunny ones, he prefers to watch from the shade. Pale ass goth bitches who love sunny weather must stick together.
> 
> Please point out any errors or wording issues; I don't use a beta-reader. I'm especially prone at times to using relatively unique words too often.


End file.
